> So for those of us who know next to nothing about rock climbing, what's the difference here? Apparently Caldwell & Jorgeson were using ropes for safety although not for the climbing per se (hence why it was freeclimbing?)

Aid Climbing = using ropes to assist with going up

Free Climbing = only using yourself to climb up, but still using ropes to catch your fall

Free soloing = climbing with no protection or assistance

> Or was it a different route?

Different route on the same mountain. They did the 'Dawn Wall' (which Honnold has also done), and his recent record was on 'Freerider'.

Here's the dawn wall: http://www.rockandice.com/dawn-wall-el-cap-yosemite-topo. Don't see a good topo for Freerider yet.

Edit: Turns out I was mis-remembering on the dawn wall. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Honnold#Selected_notable_... has a list of his notable climbs.